Poll: Should BMW build the 2002 Hommage?

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When BMW pays tribute to the 2002 Turbo (one of its most iconic cars in its 100-year history), it’s a special moment. When it’s based on BMW’s 370bhp M2, you’d better sit up and take notice.

Or should you? Last weekend’s reveal of the 2002 Hommage concept at Villa D’Este was, for TG.com at least, a glorious moment. It’s a cool, flashy concept with lots of power and lots of carbon fibre. But your opinion on these pages has been divided, to say the least.

So the ultimate question is, should they? Over to BMW’s Adrian van Hooydonk. “I wouldn’t be against it if the company decided to do a small, limited edition,” he told us. “We built it on an M2 in order to get it as a real running car.”

He provides some context about the Hommage series of cars, too. “We started this series because I started thinking about what will be on show at Villa D’Este in 50 years time,” he explains. “Probably not a 3-Series because we simply make too many of those. Will it be an M3 or an M2 even? Probably not even that, because we sell too many of those too.

“What makes [Villa] so special are the one-offs, and every year we did one, we got requests for them. Here there are a lot of people who could afford such a car,” he laughs.

Ignoring the snow-plough front and obvious concept flourishes, the fact it’s built around an M2 could suggest this is closer to reality than vapourware. As Karim Habib, BMW’s design chief and the man responsible for the 2002 Hommage, explains.

“Last year when we showed the BMW board the CSL Hommage, they were like, ‘hmmm, what can we do with this’? This year, as a design team we kind of disciplined ourselves, to make sure it’s as effective as possible in terms of production.

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“The board literally said, ‘now, we see you guys are serious so we have to look into it,” he added.

So really only the glass and the roof remains from the M2. The mirrors you’ll no doubt recognise from its BMW M4 big brother. There’s the exhaust from the M235i Racing too, while the rest of the body is pure carbon fibre, built in around six months.

“If we are to do a small production run of these,” explains Karim, “they’d also be carbon fibre. Because it’s about racing. I don’t know if the people [who might buy one] will be collectors or actually want to take it out onto the racetrack, but I’d like to think they would, because that’s what this car is all about.”

Surely making it out of carbon fibre would make any potential production version quite expensive? “If you see today [at Villa D’Este], the Astons, the Ferraris, the Maseratis and Rolls-Royces that people are prepared to pay millions for, I think it was never entirely sure if people were prepared to pay really big money for BMW. It seems there’s a market for it,” he adds.

TopGear.com gently puts it to him that we need to see this car built. “I’ll be carrying that torch, I promise,” he smiles. But here’s the thing – do you want to see it built as a limited series production car?

Vote via the poll below, and then give us your reasons in the comments box below.

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